run by a mom & fueled by coffee. all about motherhood, raising kids, and my DIY life.

Racing Through the Day

Some days just disappear. The green flag waves as soon as one of the kids climbs onto my bed in the morning and the race, I mean the day, has begun!

When the yellow flag waves midday and we pause for lunch, sometimes it feels like I am scrambling to hold onto the afternoon to do something sensory and fun with the kids!

This is an easy and inexpensive racing game. And best of all, it works for the littles and the bigs as well!

All you need is:

Painters tape

Bubble wrap (optional)

Craft paper (optional)

Pipe cleaners (optional)

I use the painters’ tape versus packing tape or duct tape because the color is easy to see on most backgrounds, and it does not destroy the floors or walls! Add bubble wrap, craft paper or more textures for fun sensory sections of track! Maybe tape down a few pipe cleaners as colorful speed bumps, or use some pom-poms in a baggie (sealed/flattened with taped edges) as a bumpy track.

I do a quick vacuum of my living room before any of this fun starts, but once you chose an area to play, it takes just a couple of minutes to set up!

Lay out your painters tape (aka the racetrack) in your design. A circle, figure 8, a zigzag…feel free to get creative! You can use the tape as a centerline that the kids try to keep their car centered on, or it could be setup with the tape as the edge of the raceway (like mine).

As soon as I start setting up, the kids run to the toy car bin. Yes, an entire bin dedicated to keeping all the toy cars and trucks and buses and, well anything with wheels lives in that bin. I strive and thrive on organization! More about that in a later post…

For a quick recap: pull out supplies, set up track, maybe add in some sensory sections as you can, then the cars are on the track! I jump in a play with them for a bit. Usually I’m the slow car that gets beeped and honked at, so I pull off for a pit stop. What better way to help build their imaginations than to start by modeling some fun for them!?